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Don’t Menschn the By-election!

Posted by jonathanfryer on Tuesday, 7th August, 2012

David Cameron needs a parliamentary by-election in a Tory marginal seat like a hole in the head, but that is what Louise Mensch, MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, has delivered to him. The Conservatives will be hard pressed to hold the seat, which novelist Louise Bagshawe (as she then was) seized from Labour at the 2010 general election. Some fantasists have suggested that London Mayor Boris Johnson should be parachuted in, but that would be a foolish move only a few months after being re-elected Mayor and anyway even he would not be guaranteed to win the seat. For the Coalition government the by-election will be an irritating distraction and will bring unwelcome high-profile scrutiny of its austerity measures from the Labour opposition. So some Conservatives and Liberal Democrats may be tempted to hide their heads in the sand and hope no-one mentions the by-election. Nonetheless we can expect the campaign to be pretty rough, and that’s not only because of the nature of this largely industrial seat. So what about the Liberal Democrats’ chances? In 2010, they polled less than 15% in Corby and the likelihood of doing even that well might seem remote given the Party’s current standing in the opinion polls and the way that Labour is accusing the Liberal Democrats of everything short of eating babies. But it would be a mistake for the LibDems to downplay this by-election. Indeed, it gives them an ideal opportunity for differentiation — to show that even if they are in Coalition with the Conservatives, they have not been absorbed by them. Indeed, on many key issues the two parties’ policies are distinct. Now is the time for the Liberal Democrats to pin their true colours to he mast and rebuild some of their damaged credibility with the electorate, both in the Corby by-election and at their Autumn Conference in Brighton next month.